Femtocells—building-based wireless access points interfaced with a wired broadband network—are generally deployed to improve indoor wireless coverage, and to offload a mobility radio access network (RAN) operated by a wireless service provider. Improved indoor coverage includes stronger signal and improved reception (e.g., voice or sound), ease of session or call initiation, and session or call retention as well. Offloading a RAN can reduce operational and transport costs for the service provider since a lesser number of end users utilizes over-the-air radio resources (e.g., radio frequency channels), which are typically limited.
Coverage of a femtocell, or femto access point (AP), is generally intended to be confined within the bounds of an indoor compound (e.g., a residential or commercial building) in order to mitigate interference among mobile stations covered by a macro cell and terminals covered by the femto AP. Additionally, confined coverage can reduce cross-talk among terminals serviced by disparate, neighboring femtocells as well. Femtocells typically operate in licensed portions of the electromagnetic spectrum, and generally offer plug-and-play installation; e.g., automatic configuration of femto AP subsequent to femtocell subscriber registration with a service provider. Coverage improvements via femtocells also can mitigate customer attrition as long as a favorable subscriber perception regarding voice coverage and other data services with substantive delay sensitivity is attained. In addition, a richer variety of wireless voice and data services can be offered to customers via a femtocell since such service offerings do not rely primarily on mobility RAN resources.
It can be desirable to create hybrid femtocell gateways by integrating femtocells into broadband gateways (e.g., residential broadband gateways) supporting multiple WAN (e.g., DSL, 3G Wireless) and LAN (e.g., HPNA, Ethernet, 802.11g) interfaces. Integrating wireless and wireline services for the consumer market can realize significant benefits. However, there are technical challenges to realizing the potential of femtocells in areas of scalability, installation/activation management, performance management, inter-femtocell or base station hand-off, access control, crosstalk/interference management, and security and policy management.
For instance, conventionally, macro base stations are configured based on static spectrum management rules. When employing femtocells, it is desirable that femtocell spectrum management be more adaptive in the presence of interference from other femtocells or interference from macro base station cells. Also, current traditional wireless base stations management support only homogeneous services over a single wireless standard (e.g., 3G base station, etc.). With regard to femtocell management in an integrated gateway, it is desirable to employ multiple wireline and wireless protocol and policy management (e.g., WiFi, Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), Home Phoneline Network Association (HPNA)) that is more complex. Current macro base stations have optimized local management capabilities and embedded operational control channels that require memory and overhead, which is not practical in femtocells, as femtocells typically have more limited resources and are less expensive than macro base stations.
Moreover, home network services, such as security and policies, and crosstalk scenarios can be more diverse and challenging. It is therefore desirable to have the ability for remote diagnosis, proactive spectrum management, and customer care. Further, self-installation scenarios that hybrid femtocell gateways will have are new and different from traditional wireless models. It is desirable to have the ability for remote profile management and customer care.